A Fabled Shout

Again, these exercises were led by Peter Dimuro in the Mixed Abilities Institute - July 13 - 18th 2008.

A New Approach to Walk & Talk

Walk & Talk is an excellent tool for developing interesting text. Because you’re walking, your approach to creating a story is different. Also, in large groups, it’s freeing to be surrounded by voices all working at the same task. Similar to a free writing exercise, the tool asks you to freely speak, and tell a story (following a prompt) within a certain time limit – either one pass through the room, two or three, or just half way.

Prompt: Describe a time when you wanted to shout or whisper.

1 Pass through the room: tell the story.
1 Pass through the room: describe the image of the story. (Physical descriptors of the place or room).
2 Passes through the room: physically describe one item from the story.
1 Pass through the room: describe the anatomical experience of the event. (Anatomical physical descriptions: what was your breath, were you sweating? What was your throat doing?)
1 Pass through the room, tell the story again.
1Pass through the room, if you wish, tell your story to a partner.

Discoveries: the physical descriptions exploded the story. Suddenly, in order to include the juicy details that interested me, I had to forgo entire aspects of the story, putting aside it’s narrative arc, allowing it to become prose like.

One result:

The sun is shining.
Her voice continues and my thoughts ram unrepentedly against the inside of my skull.
The words come out shoved. Squeezing them through clenched teeth.
I want to smile. The chalk on the grass hits some leaves and misses others.
I wonder what the rules are to those children’s games.
I have ended the conversation, but the tension in my chest continues to build.
Slowly my surroundings come back into focus.

We then went further and incorporated the stories into Three Column Writing.
Column 1: Personal Story
Column 2: List of Physical Descriptors (environment and anatomical).
Column 3: Favorite Fairytale

Discoveries: Trying to write a fairytale in five minutes is difficult. Entire story parts are omitted and many things are made up as memory falters.

Purpose: Personal stories can deal with vulnerability and conflict with discomfort. The physical descriptors and fairytale give you a way out. The goal is to access the story images – you don’t necessarily want to bring your vulnerability to the stage.

Next task:
Make a list of physical Descriptors from the fairy tale.
Find relations between the fairytale and the personal story.
Column writing could be used as a way to organize movement. How? Various ideas: movement could be created from aspects of text from each column, collected movement from rehearsals could be identified as movement that comes from a personal improvisation, physical tasks, and outside sources – and even organized as such by using three column writing as a Structure.

Discovery: Whatever tools you apply to writing could also be applied to movement and vice versa.

Another interesting take on Walk & Talk (explored in a workshop with Open Circle Theatre) was:
Practice Pass – walking and talking.
Pass 1: Tell a story of a time you shouted or whispered.
4 Passes: Tell the same story with more detail.
1 Pass: Tell the same story with edits.
½ Pass: tell the most important details.
1 Pass: Tell the same story as a fable or fairytale.

That night we combined Walk & Talk with 1 to 10. The first person would make a shape and start their story. The next would add on, overlapping their story and relating their shape. The next would add on as the first story was fading. The next… ect.

Discovery: The fable idea – while particular to something Open Circle was exploring, added interesting elements to the story telling, of how it was told: 3rd person? How is was begun, and how it ended.